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Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

I prefer to think of it in terms of acceptance rate. Yes, 80 to 85% is pretty much the norm in my experience, anthing below 70% is pretty demoralizing but happens on occassion, 90%+ is "rarified air", nice when it happens but not something you can count on. That hasn't changed too much through the years. More noteworthy, though, is that I have found when you get those lower numbers it is a sign of poor mating conditions that will later manifest itself in the coming months in a higher attrition rate among those queens that you do catch. In other words the simple presence of eggs in a nuc 2 weeks after cell insertion does not necessarily a great queen make. I agree with Mike. You really do need to treat your nucs with uniformity, any nuc that hasn't "caught" in the same timeframe as the majority needs to be rebuilt and recelled on the same schedule as all it's neighbors.

Last edited by jim lyon; 12-02-2012 at 09:01 AM.
Reason: Clarity

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Hi Daniel Y do you raise very many queens i am just very small operation had about 400 mating nuc's last year.

The 80% i talked about was a combination of things
#1 I don't candle light queen cells so some don't turn out
#2 the bees don't except some
#3 find q after hatch looks good
Then when they should be laying no queen in nuc some time i have noticed less bees in nuc think they swarmed and i find a few in the trees usally 20 to 30 feet high.

I have found it best to graft every 2 days if weather permits.

About 10 to 15% of the 20% is cells not being excepted some not hatching and Nucs swarming.

Then the other 5% who knows
Birds or insects catch them they get lost on mating flight.

But you still will need to re-cell about a 20% of them or i do but not allways.

I am also finding if you re-cell with a second cell i will add a frame of small larva so the bees will feed them and use up there royaljelly hoping to keep down laying workers and bees leaving,when the second q cell hatches some brood in the nuc. Will keep them from leaving.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Originally Posted by Lauri

I tried to make my ripe queen cells coincide with the weekend so folks who wanted them could pick them up on their days off. I had No cell sales however. . . They were quite cheap . . . I think I advertised them at $10.00 each . . .

Around here that would be quite expensive. Virgins sell for less than that, and cell are less than $5.00.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Originally Posted by Lauri

Maybe that's why
But some of those were from my Glenn breeder queen..I thought $10. was decent.

It is, of course, whatever the market will bear. Typically cells will sell from $3.00 on up. $10 may not be out of line if you are dealing in smaller quantities with proven genetics and a local demand for it but you are probably not going to sell many at that price.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Hi Daniel Y do you raise very many queens i am just very small operation had about 400 mating nuc's last year.

Daniel Y's apiary is a little bit smaller than Velbert's "very small operation with 400 nuc's".

Originally Posted by Daniel Y

I think I may have lost my top bar. No surprise there that colony was, A new word to me, A dink. In person I use far more colorful phrases to describe it. I didn't find out until to late what I should have done with it. Which was pinch the queen and use the bees to boost my two nucs.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Velbert I have produced a grand total of 12 queens or so to date. I am just doing homework on breeding queens in the interest of having a full queen breeding operation in a bit over 4 years. I have been pouring over a lot of research papers the last few days. Your post caught my interest in just the numbers of losses so I sort of gave it a closer look.

I am mainly gathering up what others say and have measured observed collected or whatever. so take it for what it is worth. No argument from me that a windy afternoon can scew results drastically.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

We typically average around 80 to 85% cell acceptance and then about the same 80 to 85% "catch" on those accepted cells. Its always nice to have plenty of extra cells so that you can afford to cull the smaller ones. Sure we have years where we run better and years where we dont. Its anyones guess what happens to those 15 to 20% that miss, perhaps a bad wing or lost her way home or maybe there was nothing at all wrong with her but for some reason the bees just didnt want to accept her. I have re-celled nucs a few days later when we end up with a significant number of extra cells rather than just throw them in the garbage. While it seems like that would improve your acceptance a little I have, in fact, never noticed that it helps at all, which would indicate to me that most of the misses were queens that just dont return to their original hive after mating. I am pretty much convinced that the biggest variable in queen catch is mating weather.
Im not real sure what you mean by "returned queens" not up to par. I can only reiterate that poorer acceptance usually means poorer mating conditions and hence more of the queens that did mate likely to go bad as the season progresses.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Hi Kevin

5% of your 80% mated and laying queens could be a bit more or less

and i will use these not so good queens that i wouldn't sell,and put them in my problem nuc that the workers are starting to lay along with a frame of eggs and just hatching eggs to to get these back on track. Then when its time to pull queens from the good laying nuc i will cage these and repete the process and lots of time i have just directly introduce these with a 75% turn out (feed at this time) then these are in the Wright time frame to re-cell with the rest.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Sorry I woudl have had this done sooner but was out of town most of yesterday got a late start this morning and had to do some running around.
Thank you again michael for putting this info out there.
My revision of Michaels breeding system from day 1 to day 38 complete with a new schedule starting every 4 days.
Day 1 Schedule A Set up Cell Builder
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 Schedule B Set up Cell Builder
Day 6 Schedule A Grafting comb in breeder
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9 Schedule C Set up Cell Builder
Day 10 Schedule A Check CB for queen cells
Schedule B Grafting comb in breeder
Day 11 Schedule A Graft
Day 12
Day 13 Schedule D Set up Cell Builder
Day 14 Schedule C Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule B Check CB for queen cells
Day 15 Schedule B Graft
Day 16 Schedule A Re-unite CB
Day 17 Schedule E Set up Cell Builder
Day 18 Schedule D Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule C Check CB for queen cells
Day 19 Schedule C Graft
Day 20 Schedule B Re-unite CB
Day 21 Schedule F Set up Cell Builder from Sch. A for second round
Schedule A Cells Ready
Day 22 Schedule E Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule D Check CB for queen cells
Day 23 Schedule D Graft
Day 24 Schedule C Re-unite CB
Day 25 Schedule G Set up Cell Builder from Sch. B for second round
Schedule B Cells Ready
Day 26 Schedule F Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule E Check CB for queen cells
Day 27 Schedule E Graft
Day 28 Schedule D Re-unite CB
Day 29 Schedule H Set up Cell Builder from Sch. C for second round
Schedule C Cells Ready
Day 30 Schedule G Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule F Check CB for queen cells
Day 31 Schedule F Graft
Day 32 Schedule E Re-unite CB
Day 33 Schedule I Set up Cell Builder from Sch. D for second round
Schedule D Cells Ready
Day 34 Schedule H Grafting comb in breeder
Schedule G Check CB for queen cells
Day 35 Schedule G Graft
Day 36 Schedule F Re-unite CB
Day 37 Schedule J Set up Cell Builder from Sch. E for second round
Schedule A Mated Queens Ready
Schedule D Cells Ready
Day 38 Cells ready to re-cell mating nucs

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

(To stop pic in the slideshow, just click on them)
Experimental mating nucs. Before you make them, ask me if there are any design changes I would make. They all worked well, just some things I would do differently next time.
The colonies over wintering in the Danant deeps however, are snug as a bug in a ...well, you know.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

My revision of Michaels breeding system from day 1 to day 38 complete with a new schedule starting every 4 days.

Fun, eh? Try that for three months.

The best part of the schedule is that I always remember what day it is...I mean, I remember what I'm supposed to do for the day. Rain or shine.

So my days from May to August are: one/five, two/six, three/seven, four/eight...and I wake up in the morning asking what today is. Not what day of the week, but what day in the schedule. A one/five...a fun day...I harvest cells from the cell building yard, take them to the mating yard and re-cell the mating nucs, and then make up 4 more cell builders in the afternoon.

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

Everyone in the queen business dosent observe the same kind of March madness that we do Greg. Because queen season can last for much of the year in some operations grafting on Sundays but not Thursdays really does happen.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Curious on Commerical Queen Rearing Yard Rotation

The best part of the schedule is that I always remember what day it is...I mean, I remember what I'm supposed to do for the day. Rain or shine.

So my days from May to August are: one/five, two/six, three/seven, four/eight...and I wake up in the morning asking what today is. Not what day of the week, but what day in the schedule. A one/five...a fun day...I harvest cells from the cell building yard, take them to the mating yard and re-cell the mating nucs, and then make up 4 more cell builders in the afternoon.

May the schedule...be un-broken...by and by lord, by and by....

Actually, Looking at it it looks like a very manageable system. long complex list but when it breaks down I look at it and ask myself how I would stay busy
Now the bad news. You are in my cross hairs as one of my favorite breeders. that means you get to be pestered at every turn for a while. I will also be expecting you to supply me some breeder queens in the future. A couple years away on that one.

I know I should just go look at your web site and I will. I have been their before but this time I have to file that information somewhere.

For now what breeding nucs do you use and why have you chosen those? (oops just saw your post below about 4 way minis.)

So far I am liking a 5 frame nuc maybe a smaller single nuc and here is why.

I am concerned with the mated queens ability to move and exorcise and how it effects both sperm reaching the spermathica and how it helps her clear her oviducts after mating. basically I have found info that says queens with room to run around are heather and more fertile.

Same info says the same issue but mainly the spermathica issue requires a min temp in the nuc (34 degrees C) in order for sperm to migrate at highest rates. Assuring temp control requires a min population of bees. Something in the neighborhood of 1000 bees per nuc. I also want each nuc to be separate and independent and I am concerned that the mini nucs will just be to small for a good population or even good exorcise room. I think the room issue is more of a problem on the queen cage scale though. I know individual units of any kind will boost costs. Oh well. gotta do what I gotta do. and I am just making the list. Higher costs just means I start smaller.

But any info on what size nuc is still big enough and still handles the above issues would be appreciated.